Solymár

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phone district code:

population:

9865 person

area:

1786 km²

Solymár (pronounced in Hung. as, German: Schaumar) is a village north-west of Budapest, neighbouring the 3rd and 2nd districts of the city, Nagykovácsi, Pilisszentiván, Pilisvörösvár, Csobánka, Pilisborosjenő, and Üröm. Its picturesque surroundings (hills to the south and east, the highest point is Zsíroshegy at 424m) and good accessibility (the 64 and 164 city buses from Hűvösvölgy, a train from Budapest-Nyugati, and coaches from Árpád-híd) made it a primary target for prosperous city-dwellers moving out of the city in the past decade.

History/People

The name of the village is first mentioned in a charter by Béla IV dated 5 May 1266, as Solomar. The most likely etymology of the name is Hungarian solymár (more commonly solymász) 'falconer', i.e., the place where the royal falconers live. (Several neighbouring villages were named in the same vein.) The village prospered during the following centuries, it probably hosted a royal hunting castle (Szarkavár) which burnt down after 1561. The advance of the Ottoman Empire left the village deserted after 1580. It remained an uninhabited place until the first settlers arrived in around 1700, first Serbians and Bulgarians fleeing from the withdrawing Ottoman Empire, soon afterwards Germans (die Donauschwaben) came, who later formed the vast majority of the population. About half of the population of the village were deported to Germany as a collective punishment after World War II (leaving 332 households vacated). The sad event is commemorated since 1990. The empty households were occupied by ethnic Hungarians from other parts of the country (mainly Mezőkövesd), as well as refugees from Transylvania. Later ethnic Hungarians deported from Czechoslovakia arrived. With the large-scale immigration of people from Budapest in the past decade, ethnic Germans became a minority of the population.